I don't think this was asked earlier ... let's say you have druid and cleric who give buffs that improve HP ... druid buff +400HP + 90WIS cleric buff +500HP +40VIT When they both buff you ... you would get 500 HP , 90 WIS and 40 VIT. That part makes sense. Now here is my question ... What happens if the Cleric's buff is despelled ... do you loose 100 HP's, (because the druid's buff is on you still) or do you loose all 500? I hope this question makes sense. Another example and maybe more the norm ... lets say it's only HP buff ... not the others stats (druid buff +400 HP and cleric buff +500 HP) ... if the druid casts his buff second will the druid buff fail to stick because it's less, or will it show up on your buffs but just not add to players HP? If the cleric casts his buff second, will it kick the druid buff out and overwrite?) Wow, I hope those aren't dumb questions ... I know they are basic, but I want to make sure my mind is wrapped around this the right way. Thanks
So long as one effect is still active on the buff, the buff won't be removed. So in your example, the Druid's +400hp would be 'disabled'. But once the cleric buff wears off, it would be reenabled (because it is now recognized as the best hp buff). To answer both questions in a single statement -- whenever a BBO ability is added or removed, the effects are recalculated to determine which are the best and therefore which should be enabled or disabled.
You would lose 100 hp and 40 vit, all buffs would stick but you would only the best stats of each buff would affect you.
Thanks to both of you. That makes sense, and I can see this working well. I hope I get a chance to test this on the test server.
Oh ... last question I think ... (actually two) ---How do I transfer my character to test for testing this? --- I have in many other MMO's been known to go to newbie areas and buff newbies. Will level 55 buffs stick to let's say a level 10 toon? Thanks
No, you have to use lower level buffs for buffing level 10 toons. Level 55 buff on level 10 toon would be same as "I win!" as far as level 10 content is concerned.
One of the things that I will be experimenting with is making the final buff able to be cast on anyone of any level and while they won't get the level 55 buff they will get the highest buff they qualify for. No promises but it might be possible.
Are the BBO rules going to be applied to pets (charmed or summoned)? Also, as it concerns the raid-wide bard songs, are they now hitting pets (meaning coded as ally entities in game versus player entities only)?
The edit function on this board is horrible. Let me ask it this way: Since they are moving to raid-wide, do all beneficial effects not labeled short-term or group only effect all allied entities within range of the caster/target at the time the buff is applied? Thus will pets and minions now be buffed and receive bard songs?
Another thing while you're messing with buffs and stacking ... Why doesn't general evasion or general mitigation add to AOE or Critical mitigation and evasion?
not gona happen, talk about balance shifts lol. Anyway it was already stated somewhere before that anything that wasn't a 1h buff was classified as short. raid wide bard sons, well the idea is kinda frightening but i really need to mull that over some.
Raid wide bard songs were going to come from a dev crew eventually. I've always been in favor of this. I know that content seems easy now but back when it was 18-man, builds were more tight and less theorycrafting/alpha builds existed the absence of one bard could ruin your chances on a mob. 3 out of 18 spots for one class was kind of a ridiculous way to build encounters given that there are 15 playable classes.
Ok so it has been mentioned that with the current system a couple classes buffs aren't very useful, and one of the selling points of this change is that everyone will be best at something, but not all stats or attributes are created equally. In a raid setting sure we want to have everything, but in a group setting different activities and classes utilize different stats. So say with the current system my buff adds X Y and Z Now say I get to be the best at Z and its something casters don't worry about like str. X and Y other classes get to be best at. I still add some but not as much as those other classes. Say its a group of casters and they are going to kite some mobs now they really don't care at all about Z and they will make sure to drag buff bots so they can get X and Y because lets face it there are a lot of buff bots in this game and people don't like to settle for second best when they have access to the best. My buff used to contribute but the changes have devalued it. What good is it being the best at something that isn't wanted in the first place? Am I missing something how this is going to be a positive change? I can understand how it will be simpler but simpler isn't necessarily better. I play vg because it does have more complexity and depth. Also if I'm understanding correctly each time a new buff is added or removed stats have to be recalculated for what is the best buff and this includes short term buffs. Vg has many problems with lag as it is so I'm wondering will this new system require any additional processing by the server than the current system? Just seems turning on and off portions of buffs sounds more complicated than adding or subtracting one buff as it is gained or lost.
I have a question, and I don't think's it's been asked. My favorite class is Paladin. One thing I love is the attack abilities like "Champions Might" that gives me extra strength. Will those abilities still be around for my pally? Thanks,
I'm replying you here to avoid derailing the other thread, I hope you don’t mind… I want the BBO system for a simple reason, it brings some consistency to buffing. Right now stacking rules are complex, some individual effects stack while others don’t. From what I’ve observed over the years Vanguard’s buffs have two stacking systems: the first one is quite simple: spell line, you can only have one spell active per line. if you cast an upgrade that upgrade overrides the old buff… the second one is about how buffs interact with spells from other lines, and quite surprisingly, this second system is a multi-slot BBO system. Each spell has a number of effects and each effect is assigned to a slot. You can have multiple effects in the same slot as long as those effects give different stats, but you cannot have two effects that affect the same stat in the same slot, you will only benefit from the highest one. A buff can have effects in different slots, for example you can have a buff that gives you strength in slot one, wisdom in slot two, dexterity in slot one and intelligence in slot three. The main problem here is that there is no way to know where is that effect assigned to, therefore buff stacking is seemingly random. For example, you can have two buffs casted on you that give int, dex and con, and then you realize that only int is stacking, the rest are just giving you the highest stat. That’s confusing, hard to understand and more importantly very hard to balance. Let’s imagine that you are a developer and you are tasked with creating a new buff, you can assign each effect to whatever slot you want, but depending on what slot do you chose stacking will vary. This forces developers to look all possible buffs if they want to ensure that the buff stacks as intended. This takes a lot of time and resources… until now everything worked like this, even EE’s. A BBO system avoids this issue completely, all buffs will always stack in a consistent manner, developers won’t have to check every effect for spell to ensure that everything stacks as intended they only have to decide the amount of each stat they want to add to that buff and that’s all. I know, it’s confusing and hard to understand but it’s the only solution that doesn’t imply nerfing all buffs. The current system was an improvement over EQ’s buff stacking system but it is needlessly complicated and hard to balance, given the size of the team it should be a priority to be able to add buffs and effects without wasting time.
while most of what you say is correct and the overall intent is to simplify buff management for coding purposes, the arguments presented by players regarding shifts in buff value to individuals and groups is also valid. The BBO effect primarily balances in a multiclass raid. The response to questions about what happens if a buff is stripped was responded to by saying the next highest buff would be in effect ( since , apparently , all of the buffs are still being managed). For those that don't fully understand how code and checks work, this still sounds like a lot of checking and managing would be going on anytime a mob has a buff stripping capability ( think spellrip). It is reasonable for players to question these things before changes are made so that devs make well informed decisions in the process. While we may not agree and some posts are overly passionate, it is still useful to consider what is being said.
Group buff balance is going to be an issue, but in my opinion is a lesser evil than reducing buff strength for most buffs or leaving things as they are. About the checks… you are right, there are a lot of checks for buffs, but right now is much worse as it is happening for every slot. The BBO system will reduce this to just one and that’s a huge improvement, right now there are at least three different slots but there can be even more than that. Reducing that to just one is a nice improvement that should help with lag... of course the team may have solved this long time ago by caching buffs and refreshing them every few seconds and when something alters the buffs instead of doing it every second or even worse, every tick.
